


Shed My Skin

by lonelywalker



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Pre-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1678403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After so many deaths and betrayals, all Hank and Charles have left are an old house, an advanced serum, and each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shed My Skin

They weren’t alone, Hank knew, although the mansion with all its empty rooms sure felt lonely as the months dragged past. 

Years ago, Cerebro had shown them all the others: mutants around the world, some in the U.S. and relatively close by. Some they’d even met, before the war began and the school closed down permanently. But now Cerebro was a useless room in a basement neither one of them had stepped in lately. He and Charles might as well have been the only people on Earth, playing out the dismal plot of some gothic novel in a decrepit family home. Both they and the mansion had seen better days.

Even after Cuba, they’d been optimistic. It had been almost worrying, how chipper Charles managed to be, despite coping with his disability, despite having been betrayed by a true friend and deserted by his sister. Hank had thought about hiding in basements himself, after all that, with his body changed beyond recognition, with Raven gone, with all of them rattled by war and absent friends. 

“All of them” had been a joke then too. But with Alex and Sean around, it had been easier to fake the smiles and enthusiasm and hope. But Sean had died and Alex was maybe dead too, serving his country halfway around the world, and all the other students had either been drafted or drifted away. Charles had drifted too. He just hadn’t gone anywhere.

Every Monday, Hank fetched groceries. It was usually his only contact with humanity bar the television. The serum was reasonably effective, kept him looking and feeling the way he had before, but there was no way he could somehow sneak back into his old life. Extreme emotion brought back the Beast, and in any case he had to look after Charles.

“Any post?” Charles asked. He was in his robe, still, gazing out over the rich lawns that kept Hank busy every spring. There had been a groundskeeper once, but there seemed little point hiring staff these days. Hank had nothing else to do.

“I took care of it.” Bills. Academic correspondence Charles never wanted to see. The question, really, was _has there been anything from Raven?_ A letter. A postcard. Even something in strange handwriting… But there was never anything remotely mysterious.

Hank wondered if Erik was allowed to write, down in his Pentagon hellhole. Probably not, or he and Charles would already be playing chess and psychological games by mail.

Charles let out a long sigh. The serum had given him back his peace of mind and the use of his legs, but he seemed perpetually tired these days, his eyes always red-rimmed. It was the scotch, Hank thought, but he couldn’t very well condemn Charles for that. He’d never had much of a taste for the hard stuff himself, but he’d often thought about taking a swig anyway, if it helped to block the pain that much. Charles had found a way to escape from the thoughts of the world, but they were both still trapped with their own.

“We could go for a walk,” Hank offered. “Remember how we used to run?”

“I wouldn’t be much competition.” Charles smiled weakly, like a child knowing he was being humored. “Isn’t it time for another dose?”

The serum had seemed like the solution to everything at the time, and for a while Hank had been puzzled by the way Charles never truly _enjoyed_ regaining his mobility. In the same situation, Hank imagined he’d spend all his time walking, running, doing backflips… But then Hank had been given his face back too, and spent all his time hiding it from everyone except the one man who couldn’t have cared less whether he was blue or purple or green.

He’d spent a lot of time staying out of Charles’ way, at first: cleaning, tidying, rigging up televisions and recording _Star Trek_ for reference purposes. He was used to being alone with his machines and his books, used to sleeping alone too. It was even a relief that the mansion was finally quiet at night. 

Quiet, at least, till his unlocked door creaked open.

His first thought, bleary and surprised and half-asleep, was _Raven?_ But there were a dozen other names on his list of people he would have loved to see, no matter the hour. He sat up, grabbing his glasses.

“Sorry.” Charles’ English accent was even more pronounced when he was apologizing. “I didn’t mean to disturb you… Well, I did, I suppose. But…”

“You’re in pain?” Hank asked. His own doses were calibrated so that the serum wore off at night, but for Charles the withdrawal didn’t simply mean bursting out all over in fur.

“No, no, I’m fine.” 

Charles stayed where he was, hand on the doorknob. Hank rubbed his eyes and waited. Telepathy at such a time, he thought, would probably be useful.

“Do you think I could-” Charles broke off, but he’d gestured slightly to the bed and Hank, after dumbly looking at the blankets in his lap, guessed at his meaning.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course you could. Can.” He’d never had a brother, if brothers ever slept in the same beds these days, but he’d been thinking a lot about having a warm body next to him lately, and… Well, in fact those weren’t very fraternal thoughts at all.

Hank scooted over a little, onto the cold side of the bed, as Charles stiffly hung his robe over the door. “If you were Raven,” Hank said, as he replaced his glasses on the bedside table, “you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

Charles’ laugh was brief, but perhaps genuine enough as he drew back his side of the covers. “I would. But she certainly wouldn’t.”

Always warm at night, Hank slept in nothing but shorts and would have worn less than that if he didn’t have responsibilities as the mansion’s sole nurse and guard. Charles, though, had silken pajamas… Or at least did usually, although Hank’s fingers now bumped into the bare skin of his arm. “Sorry,” Hank said, pulling his hand away. “We could put some cushions in the-”

He was surprised enough that Charles grabbed his wrist and pulled him in. The kiss ensured that he could find neither breath nor words for a good thirty seconds. Thirty seconds in which even that deep, primal, beastlike part of his brain understood what should have been blindingly obvious the moment Charles asked to share his bed. His higher levels of thinking were mostly preoccupied by the scotch on Charles’ lips, by the way he smelled much better than he should, and…

“Are you drunk?” Hank asked, in a slightly higher pitch than normal. Who knew what Charles’ mental state really was, or what effects the serum might have? And in any case Hank wasn’t going to make out with anyone who was inebriated and might entirely regret it in the morning.

“Frequently,” Charles said. He sounded calmer than Hank had heard him in months. “But not now.”

“Oh.” Which left the even more perturbing question of whether he was going to make out with anyone who _wasn’t_ inebriated. They’d all known about Charles’ interests as far as the bedroom went, although no one had actually seen him and Erik together. All Alex and Sean had ever talked about was girls and “doing it”, although for all Hank knew they were probably just as inexperienced as he was himself. “This, uh. This didn’t go well for me the last time.”

“The last time?” Charles’ hand was still on his wrist, breath still tickling his fur.

“Not that there really was a last time,” Hank said. “Or a first time. But I, well, I wanted to, and then…”

“Shh.”

That hand moved, fingers sliding into his hair, soft lips on his again. Hank instinctively reached out to draw Charles closer, to find out exactly what he _was_ wearing, and snatched back his hand, pulling away. “It’s not safe.”

“We’re alone in a house on a giant estate,” Charles said, far too reasonably. “No one is going to walk in on us. Of course if you don’t want to, I’ll go back to my room. Or I’ll find some condoms if you like.”

Oh God. His concerns hadn’t even stretched to STDs or the actual physical realities of sex. His fears about his own hands had been enough. “I have claws. And fangs.”

“Would you prefer I said I was Raven and could defend myself?” The smile in Charles’ voice was clear, even in the darkness. “They’re only teeth and fingernails, Hank. I trust you to avoid ripping me limb from limb.”

Hank bit his own lip, reached out tentatively again: bare arm, ribs, hip… Then the pajama pants, already low. He left his hand there, right on the seam. “Why tonight? Why now?”

“You might ask, why not every other night before now?”

“I might,” Hank said. The longer they talked, the less nervous he felt.

“I thought about it. I truly did. But I’m not a brave man, Hank. Not anymore. Or at least I wasn’t until tonight. Let’s just say it became easier to walk in here than lie in there and think more about all the myriad ways in which I’m failing.”

“You’re not failing.” It was a familiar theme, but it felt better now to be able to comfort Charles with more than just words and injections. He’d touched bare skin with these hands before, but not like this, not to _feel_.

Charles settled his head against Hank’s shoulder. “No? I failed everyone who ever came to this school. Erik, Raven… And now I’m failing you by making you keep me company while I wallow in all this misery.”

“You're not making me,” Hank said. “And it’ll get better. The war will be over soon. I’ll improve the serum. You’ll feel more like yourself.”

“That’s the trouble. I don’t want to feel like myself. Why would I want to be that _stupid_ boy who couldn’t protect any of them?”

“We saved the world.”

“Funny,” Charles said. “How that seemed so much easier than saving one or two of my friends.”

Hank spent a lot of his time trying not to notice how deathly quiet the mansion could be. Now that Charles had finished speaking, the silence penetrated the room like icy East Coast winds. Hank grabbed for the blankets, drawing them up. “You know,” he said, hesitant but no longer scared. “Maybe we could… I mean, this is nice. This is already better. But maybe we should just get some sleep tonight? Take things slowly.”

He had already been going at a snail’s pace so far as sexual experimentation went, but all that meant was that a few more days or weeks wouldn’t matter much. Simply spending the night in the same bed as someone he might possibly want to, well, _sleep_ sleep with, was a huge leap forward.

“Slowly,” Charles said with a drowsy chuckle, as though he’d been thinking precisely the same thing. “You’re so very old sometimes, Hank. So very responsible.”

Hank wrapped a furry arm around him. “I can probably develop a serum for that too.”


End file.
